Virginia Just Fine Being College Basketball's Most Overlooked Powerhouse Program

The Virginia Cavaliers are college basketball's anecdotal tree that falls in the forest.

Even if no one is around to hear it, that tree makes a sound. And even though people have been hesitant to accept it, Virginia is a powerhouse.

In mid-February, I wrote about college basketball's traditional powerhouses finally rounding into shape, which included the in-season turnarounds of Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, Arizona, Wisconsin and, yes, Virginia.

One of the most liked comments on that article was from a Ches Goodall, who wrote simply, "I would not call Virginia a 'traditional powerhouse team.'" Several others offered similar sentiments, all of which boiled down to confusion over why Virginia was being prominently featured on a list of college basketball's most successful programs.

Granted, Kentucky has four times as many national championships as Virginia has Final Four appearances, and the Cavaliers have precisely one Sweet 16 appearance in the past two decades. Historically speaking, Wahoowa doesn't even hold a candle to Big Blue Nation or the other blue bloods.

Over the past three years, though, who has been better than the Hoos?

Even the head coach of the preseason No. 1 team in the nation felt Virginia was the cream of this year's crop.

"I said it at the start of the season; me and my buddies got together, and I thought Virginia had the best team in the country," North Carolina's Roy Williams said after Saturday's 79-74 loss in Charlottesville. "[Cavaliers head coach] Tony [Bennett] does a great, great job. He's a credit to what we should have in coaching. I don't like him during the game because his teams play so dadgum well, but they've really done some great things the last three years."

When Roy drops a "dadgum" in there, you know he's spittin' truth.

Mic Smith/Associated Press

According to KenPom, Virginia has ranked in the top 25 nationally in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency in each of the past three seasons. The only other teams to even do that in at least two of the past three years are Arizona, Villanova and Wichita State—and sorry, Pac-12, Big East and Missouri Valley, but you aren't anywhere near the annual gauntlet the ACC is.

The Cavaliers are the only ACC team in the past 14 years to win at least 88 percent of their conference games, and they did so twice in back-to-back years, compiling a 32-4 record between the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons. And though it's unlikely they'll earn a share of a third straight conference championship this season, it's still mathematically possible with one game remaining.

If it were Duke or North Carolina on that type of three-year run, we'd be tripping over each other (no Grayson Allen pun intended) trying to crown them the next great college basketball dynasty.

But it's as if no one has even noticed Virginia has been playing incredibly well and doing so without anything close to a single 5-star recruit—Anthony Gill and Malcolm Brogdon just barely cracked the 247Sports Top 100 in 2011, and the other three current starters (London Perrantes, Isaiah Wilkins and Devon Hall) were 3-star guys on 247Sports.

That's pretty incredible. Despite losing Joe Harris, Akil Mitchell, Justin Anderson and Darion Atkins over the last two summers, the Cavaliers keep putting together one of the best products in the ACC.

And the locals have certainly taken notice.

Eight years ago, you could practically walk up to the ticket window at John Paul Jones Arena an hour before tipoff and still get a courtside seat. But now, one of the loudest venues in the country is also home to one of the hottest tickets.

"I saw people yesterday camping out outside of JPJ just like they do at Duke," senior guard Brogdon said Saturday. "The basketball culture at UVA has changed so much, and we wouldn't be where we are without the fans."

Eight hours before the game began, there were more than enough fans on hand for ESPN's Jay Williams to go crowd surfing, as College GameDay shared on Twitter:

When will the outsiders begin to appreciate what Bennett has done with this program, though?

One reporter asked him Saturday how much, if at all, it mattered to him that Virginia was still in the race for the ACC title. Bennett (understandably) stared at the guy with a dumbfounded look for a few seconds before responding, "You really want me to answer that? It absolutely matters. We fought for the last two years and were thankful to get it, and the fact that we're still in the race is terrific."

It was a comical exchange but also a microcosm of the nationwide misconception about the Cavaliers.

We've all marveled at what Bill Self has been able to do in winning 12 straight Big 12 regular-season titles with Kansas, but Average Joe Basketball Fan doesn't much care what you do in January and February, nor do they appreciate how difficult it was to win back-to-back ACC titles.

What's remembered most vividly are successes and failures in the NCAA tournament, and Virginia has drastically failed to live up to its seed in each of the last two tournaments.

Two years ago, the Cavaliers won both the ACC regular-season and conference tournament titles to earn a No. 1 seed, but Michigan State ousted them in the Sweet 16. Last year, the Spartans ended No. 2-seeded Virginia's dream in the round of 32.

And—just like the stigma Villanova has been combating all year—it seems many college basketball fans will refuse to accept the Cavaliers are a Final Four-caliber team until they actually get to the Final Four.

But Bennett seems hopeful that losing three out of four games in January will pay dividends in March.

"We kind of lived off of our success last year. Not in a bad way, but we were 16-1 (through 17 ACC games in 2014-15). We always won. But when you lose and you struggle, then you learn. We realize how fine of a line it is. ... We've learned a lot through the wins—probably more through the losses."

So, try not to be too cavalier with Virginia when filling out those brackets. This team was refined by fire with those early losses to Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and Florida State and has been playing about as well as any team in the country over the past six weeks.

It's not just the losses in the past two months, either. These upperclassmen know all too well the bitter taste of early defeat in the NCAA tournament, and they'll have the resolve to avoid a third helping of that dish. Suffering heartbreak and coming back hungrier than ever the following year is a narrative we hear often in sports, and it certainly applies to these Cavaliers.

At any rate, here's hoping they actually do some damage in the tournament this year, or we'll be right back here again next March trying to convince you to believe in one of the best teams and coaches in the country.

All quotes and information obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.